.png)
Developing an equitable succession planning strategy is difficult, but essential. Organizations that integrate equity across their entire Talent Management strategy are better positioned to avoid bias, nepotism, and political maneuvering in succession decisions.
This article explains why equity is indispensable in succession decisions, especially when they concern high-stakes roles. It presents four characteristics of an equitable succession strategy: transparency, objectivity, comprehensiveness, and foresight.
For executives, HR leaders, Talent Management professionals, and nomination committees, the challenge is strategic: equitable succession strengthens diversity in leadership teams, employee engagement, and the organization’s inclusive climate. Hogan Assessments personality data make it possible to compare candidates using objective criteria and place greater emphasis on true merit.
Developing an equitable succession planning strategy is complex, but it is worth the effort.
Organizations that commit to equity across their talent strategies are more likely to avoid bias, nepotism, and political maneuvering in succession decisions. They are also more likely to see positive organizational outcomes, such as greater diversity in the leadership team, stronger employee engagement, and a more inclusive organizational climate.
In high-stakes talent decisions, personality data place the emphasis on merit. How? Personality assessment uses objective data to determine who is most likely to demonstrate leadership effectiveness.
Hogan says it consulted four coaches from the Hogan Coaching Network (HCN) to gather additional insights on how to build a succession pipeline equitably. These coaches are Ben Dattner, PhD, of Dattner Consulting, LLC; Rebecca Feder, MBA, of Princeton HR Insight LLC; Nattavut Kulnides, DBA, of ADGES; and James Sila of Re-Imagination Coach.
This article examines why equity matters so much in succession planning and presents four characteristics of an equitable approach.
Short definition — Equitable succession planning: Equitable succession planning consists in identifying, developing, and selecting future leaders based on transparent, objective, and consistent criteria, in order to reduce bias and broaden access to leadership opportunities.
Every sector, market, and role is subject to change. The pace of technological transformation — particularly generative artificial intelligence — has led many organizations to question their level of readiness and examine leader availability.
According to James Sila, predicting success in a rapidly changing world is becoming increasingly difficult. He observes that Talent Management leaders everywhere are asking themselves: do we have the talent we need to execute our long-term business plan?
Because organizations cannot predict exactly how they will need to adapt, an equitable succession strategy, built on a diverse talent pipeline, is the approach that will best serve their interests.
Short definition — Succession pipeline: A succession pipeline is a group of people identified, assessed, and developed to occupy critical or leadership roles in the organization in the future.
In practice, equity is not only a matter of compliance or ethics. It improves the quality of succession decisions by broadening the range of talent genuinely considered.
The cost of poor succession planning is extremely high: it approaches one trillion dollars per year.Âą
The VUCA market landscape — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — can certainly contribute to poorly managed CEO and executive committee transitions. But organizations also face shorter CEO tenure, with a median of less than five years in many cases.²
Almost as soon as an organization appoints a CEO, it should begin looking for that person’s successor. Other leadership roles may have even shorter tenures, making an ongoing process of identifying and developing high potentials necessary.
According to Rebecca Feder, filling an executive role in less than six months is simply recruitment, not strategic planning. When succession planning is done well, it is integrated into the organization’s annual cadence. Whatever form it takes, it starts early.
Unlike a rushed or reactive approach, an equitable succession strategy directly fuels job satisfaction, retention, engagement, performance, business effectiveness, and culture.
Regarding the business case for equity, Nattavut Kulnides explains that organizations underperform over time compared with their peers when they do not build stronger diversity in terms of nationality, geography, gender, beliefs, and other dimensions.
James Sila emphasizes that equity as a systemic practice is positive for brand reputation and is a sound business decision. People want to work in environments that value equity, where they know their performance will be evaluated fairly and where they will have equal access to opportunities.
In summary, succession planning best practices require equity.
Short definition — VUCA market: VUCA refers to a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment in which organizations must rapidly adapt their strategies, talent, and leadership approaches.
An equitable succession planning strategy is:
Transparent
Objective
Comprehensive
Forward-looking
The following sections present the coaches’ perspectives on these four characteristics.
Transparent succession planning starts with the role, not with the people.
Starting with a well-defined role facilitates a fairer selection process. According to Rebecca Feder, companies too often begin by asking which people they like most and could place in the role.
Clarity about the role can help reduce bias. Nattavut Kulnides explains that unconscious bias in recruitment and selection processes can lead to a lack of personality diversity and hinder organizational agility.
Rather than placing a preferred person in a role — for example, someone who reflects the profiles or thinking patterns of other leaders — defining and prioritizing the competencies of the position helps build a transparent strategy.
Short definition — Transparency in succession: Transparency in succession consists in clearly defining the role, criteria, expected competencies, and decision-making process before assessing candidates.
In concrete terms, transparency reduces the risk that decisions will be based on proximity, political visibility, or personal preference rather than on the real requirements of the role.
Objective succession planning is based on systemic equity in selection, development, and high-potential identification.
James Sila explains that he wants to see leaders make talent management practices systemically equitable. If they do not, they risk encountering biases that are themselves systemic. The aim, therefore, is to build the infrastructure that ensures the entire system — from planning to identification and development — has the right checks and measures.
Systematizing candidate selection reduces bias overall and allows organizations to access the best possible talent for the role.
In particular, the candidate selection process should follow the same objective steps for each person.
According to Ben Dattner, organizations should have a standard set of criteria in order to make the process as fair and objective as possible. They should also ensure that the experiences offered to people are based on a level playing field.
Treating candidates differently can lead to intentional or unintentional discrimination. Conversely, standardized practices reduce the likelihood of inequity.
Short definition — Objectivity in succession: Objectivity in succession consists in using comparable criteria, steps, and data for all candidates, in order to limit bias and strengthen decision quality.
For HR leaders, objectivity does not mean removing human judgment. It means framing it with reliable data, explicit criteria, and consistent processes.
In a comprehensive succession strategy, the frequency and scope of succession planning must be early and regular.
All four coaches agree that starting early is crucial. Depending on the context, 18 to 24 months is a minimum timeframe for executing a succession plan, although a three-to-five-year period may also be appropriate.
Because roles and business needs evolve frequently, succession planning should regularly be part of the annual or quarterly agenda of organizational strategy.
Comprehensiveness also means starting early in terms of career trajectory. According to Nattavut Kulnides, the earlier the concept of development is introduced, the better — but it should not be left to chance.
He suggests keeping development in mind from the recruitment stage: for every person who enters the organization, it should be clear whether the right person has been hired or not.
Regarding scope, Nattavut Kulnides recommends development at all organizational levels. Frontline managers, middle managers, senior leaders, and executive leaders all benefit from leadership development, high-potential programs, and coaching.
This enables organizations to build the strongest possible talent pipeline, particularly to avoid potential executive successors being too similar when adaptation is needed.
According to him, when examining the strength of the executive pipeline, organizations often end up with people who have similar profiles or beliefs. Too much similarity can hinder innovation and diversity of thought.
Short definition — Comprehensiveness in succession: Comprehensiveness in succession consists in planning early, regularly, and at all levels of the organization, rather than limiting succession to executive positions or urgent replacement needs.
In practice, a comprehensive strategy turns succession into an ongoing discipline, not a reaction to an unexpected departure.
A forward-looking succession strategy requires predicting, as much as possible, what will best serve the organization in the future.
This may require making difficult people decisions, sometimes against the demands of internal politics.
Rebecca Feder tells the hypothetical story of an organization that needed to fill a CEO position. The “obvious” successor to the outgoing CEO was the current COO, who had the business knowledge and tactical skills needed to run the company effectively.
But as the organization was preparing to move into a more advanced stage of growth, it needed a CEO skilled in public relations and public speaking — competencies the COO did not have and did not even want to develop.
According to Rebecca Feder, relationships must be separated from the objective criteria of the role. Hogan intervenes to define what the role requires and assess candidates against that framework.
In this situation, the difficult decision would be to find a different CEO, one more precisely qualified than the COO to meet future needs.
However, succession planning is not always limited to emotionally detached choice. Change management and stakeholder buy-in are also important elements of a forward-looking succession plan.
According to Ben Dattner, bringing stakeholders together, reaching consensus, and balancing competing goals and priorities is also an art. Ultimately, it is a deeply human process.
Short definition — Foresight in succession: Foresight in succession consists in selecting and developing leaders based on the organization’s future needs, not only on political logic or past successes.
For an executive, foresight involves a difficult question: is the most natural successor today truly the one the organization will need tomorrow?
Personality assessment is a necessary tool in equitable succession planning.
Personality assessment is fair. It does not show significant differences between protected groups. Personality also predicts performance. It enables organizations to know the extent to which a person is likely to demonstrate integrity, competence, judgment, communicate a vision, and display many other leadership competencies.
Organizations that use personality assessment data to compare succession candidates with the role profile and with other candidates make the comparison truly equitable for everyone.
According to Ben Dattner, being able to compare candidates on the same dimensions is very useful. Without bias, personality data reveal the extent to which potential successors can demonstrate integrity, responsibility, initiative, or any other competency essential to the role.
Hogan personality data also facilitate diversity in the executive team, Ben Dattner emphasizes. Ideally, Hogan can help identify non-demographic diversity, such as temperament, worldview, and the cognitive and stylistic differences that organizations should take into account.
Leaders influence organizational performance at three levels:
At the individual level, by motivating and engaging employees.
At the team level, by fostering constructive team dynamics.
At the organizational level, by shaping culture and driving strategy.Âł
A diverse executive team is very often a more effective and more inclusive leadership team, with influence that touches every part of the organization.
At Hogan Assessments, leadership is defined as the ability to build and maintain a high-performing team. A leader who values diversity is likely to treat people equitably, apply organizational policies consistently, and create an environment in which employees can work to their full potential.
According to Rebecca Feder, leaders must be able to create broad buy-in. You cannot only manage people who resemble you. By definition, this involves a degree of diversity.
Short definition — Non-demographic diversity: Non-demographic diversity refers to differences in temperament, values, worldview, cognitive style, or way of working, beyond visible demographic categories alone.
What truly distinguishes organizations with strong leadership pipelines from those that improvise to fill executive committee positions?
Hogan’s free guide to a comprehensive succession planning strategy explains it.
Hint: it is not a framework.
Download the guide.
Ben Dattner, PhD, is Founding Principal at Dattner Consulting LLC. As an executive coach and organizational effectiveness consultant, he has helped corporate and nonprofit organizations, as well as leaders, become more successful by strengthening their leadership skills.
Rebecca Feder, MBA, is Principal at Princeton HR Insight LLC. A certified coach and human resources professional, she has supported hundreds of leaders and teams across many sectors, helping them understand how motivation and different management styles can positively influence performance.
Nattavut Kulnides, DBA, is Founder and CEO at ADGES. An experienced consultant and coach, and former C-level executive, he works with leading global providers in leadership assessment and development to strengthen human potential.
James Sila is Founder at Re-Imagination Coach. With more than 25 years of global experience in Talent Management, he helps leaders, teams, and organizations move forward with confidence through robust and actionable human capital planning.
Fernández-Aráoz, C., Nagel, G., & Green, C. (2021, May–June). The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning. Harvard Business Review.
Jerotich, C., & Chen, J. (2023, August 4). CEO Tenure Rates. The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
Hogan, R., Curphy, G., Kaiser, R. B., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2018). Leadership in organizations. The SAGE Handbook of Industrial, Work & Organizational Psychology: Organizational Psychology, 269–288.
An equitable succession strategy is not only a matter of justice. It is a condition for sustainable performance. When an organization relies on transparent criteria, objective data, a comprehensive scope, and a forward-looking vision, it increases its chances of identifying the leaders who will truly be capable of succeeding tomorrow.
Hogan Assessments personality data make it possible to compare candidates on relevant dimensions, reduce bias, broaden the talent pipeline, and reveal deeper diversity than visible categories alone. They therefore support succession decisions that are fairer, more precise, and better aligned with the organization’s future needs.
For executives, HR leaders, and Talent Management professionals, succession planning should not be a reaction to an unexpected departure. It should become a systemic, continuous, and equitable practice integrated into the company’s strategy.
Organizations that know how to build diverse, objective, and forward-looking succession pipelines will be better prepared for the transformations ahead. They will have leaders capable of creating buy-in, valuing differences, developing talent, and building truly high-performing teams.
‍
